History

This week marks 25 years since Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, what would be the last film with the original crew, made its silver screen debut. Today, the Shuttle Pod do a rewatch and take a deep dive into a film that spoke volumes about the state of the world at the time, and perhaps even today.

This Sunday at 8:00 p.m. ET (7:00 p.m CT), The History Channel is premiering a brand new documentary called 50 Years of Star Trek, which will include the last ever interview conducted with Leonard Nimoy. Since there have already been countless documentaries already made about the franchise, we got on a call with executive producer Brian Volk-Weiss to get the inside scoop on what makes this one different.

Millions of people every year will now be able to see the original model of the USS Enterprise at the Smithsonian – unfortunately for them, just like as Picard tells Data in First Contact, they won’t be able to touch it.

The Twilight Zone and Star Trek both occupy a special place in science fiction history. But, perhaps more interesting is the surprising amount of crossover between the two shows (and I’m not just talking about the more well-known instances a la Captain Kirk screaming on an airplane). Hit the jump to read my top 10 Twilight Zone episodes that every Trekkie should see.

In honor of our beloved holiday, First Contact Day, listen to music from all five live action series and 12 movies of Star Trek on AccuRadio’s newest channel created especially for the occasion, Spock On: The Music of Star Trek.

Tonight, the 42nd annual People’s Choice Awards airs on CBS. While no Star Trek productions are up for a win this year, we can take a look back to 1980 when William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy presented at the 6th annual award ceremony. Take a gander, and marvel at Leonard’s epic mustache.

“Each of us, at some time in our lives, turns to someone – a father, a brother, a god – and asks: Why am I here? What was I meant to be?” This scene from the Director’s Edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture is meant to convey the existential crisis that V’Ger(and to a lesser extent Spock, Kirk, and Decker) is experiencing. The same can be said about the film itself, which was pulled in many different directions from the beginning and, due to numerous outside forces, struggled to find itself. That struggle is brought together in vivid detail in Return to Tomorrow, an oral history of the film from author Preston Neal Jones and publisher Creature Features.

Trekkies, hide your pocketbooks if you don’t want to be tempted by Propworx’s Star Trek auction, which boasts an impressive haul of original screen-used props from throughout the Star Trek Franchise: from props, to artwork, to costumes, to scripts. The most unique (read: priciest) item up for bid is one of only two screen-used fiberglass TOS phaser props known to exist. The prop, which was featured in the hands of a security officer in the episode “Assignment: Earth”, is expected to fetch upwards of $60,000.

The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum is overseeing the 4th and latest restoration of the original Enterprise model used to film The Original Series. For one day only they let the public in on the process, and TrekMovie’s Jared Whitley has the scoop and photos below.

Two fearless climbers have captured the eyes of the world this week with their amazing ascent up Yosemite National Park’s El Capitan. After climbing for 18 days and nights, Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson today became the first climbers ever to use only their hands and feet to summit a 3,000-foot sheer path called the Dawn Wall. The climb has garnered incredible amounts of media attention. El Capitan is of course known to Trek fans, who saw Captain Kirk free climb it in Star Trek V.

Just in time for the film’s 35th Anniversary, the long-awaited oral history of Star Trek: The Motion Picture will be released this week from author Preston Neal Jones and Creature Features Publishing. More info after the jump.

Over the weekend TrekMovie reported on the Star Trek: TNG reunion event at NYCC, which included a comment from Marina Sirtis about how Gene Roddenberry would have felt about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Today DS9 co-creator Rick Berman responded to Sirtis’ assertion. More details below.

Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered on September 28, 1987, returning the franchise to its television roots. The success of the show spawned three additional series which ran through 2005. Today celebrate TNG’s 27th birthday by watching some of the original pre-air interviews with Gene Roddenberry and the TNG cast and crew, plus a rare pre-launch campaign video for syndicated stations.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is still considered by most to be the best film in the franchise, but that doesn’t mean making the movie was easy. In a new interview writer/director Nicholas Meyer talks about how William Shatner had problems with the script and how he fought with the studio over the treatment of Spock’s death. Details below.

The studio model for the USS Enterprise from the original Star Trek series is on the move. Earlier this week the ship was removed from its latest display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, in preparation for move to a new location within the museum. The model will also be undergoing evaluation and conservation treatment. More details and photos below.

Today TrekMovie finishes up our exclusive interview with writer David Gerrold – this time Gerrold talks frankly about his troubled time working on Star Trek: The Next Generation and coming into conflict with Gene Roddenberry and Rick Berman, being ‘blackballed’ in Hollywood and he even gives his thoughts on JJ Abrams Star Trek.